UPDATE: Naftali Bennett just announced he has agreed to join Yair Lapid’s center-right government. It is a historic move, toppling from power Bibi Netanyahu who had been PM for the past 12 years and three years prior to that. In total, he was the longest serving leader in the country’s history.
In a bellwether for Israeli politics, Israeli media report that Naftali Bennett has agreed to join a center-right coalition government with Yair Lapid, which would unseat Bibi Netanyahu from the position he has held for the past 11 years. The announcement may come in the next few hours (or as late as Monday), with ministers sworn in very soon thereafter.
Netanyahu had long ago used up the nine lives ascribed to cats. He seemed to have a stratagem to avoid every trap and pitfall in his path. He had an unlimited supply of Get Out of Jail Free cards. It even seemed that the late Gaza war might somehow permit him to continue as prime minister, and eventually weasel his way out of a possible conviction on the corruption charges facing him.
But if Bennett succeeds in convincing his political partner, Ayelet Shaked to join him in the new government, he will be come prime minister for the next two years. It’s an astonishing development for this former American Jew who parlayed a high tech startup into great wealth, then began his career as Netanyahu’s chief of staff.
Bennett is what one might call a soft-Judeo supremacist, or a fascist with a human face. He doesn’t live in a settlement, but he promotes the agenda of the settler movement. When he becomes prime minister it won’t matter that he’s not himself a settler. For all intents and purposes he is everything they can hope and wish for. He represents the settler movement in control of the State. Judeo-fascism acendant and triumphant.
But he’s not a thug like Ben Gvir. He’s not a vigilante like Lehava. He’s smoother. He doesn’t say he wants to expel all Israeli Palestinians, but only some of them. And he doesn’t want to physically expel them from their communities like Ben Gurion did in the Nakba; but rather wants to redraw borders so that they are no longer part of Israel. It is ethnic cleansing done with clean hands. Apartheid of smoke and mirrors.
But never doubt that Bennett lacks that killer instinct. He was, after all, the one who boasted that he’d “killed a lot of Arabs,” and did so with a clean conscience.
He will be prime minister for the first two years of the government term, followed by Lapid for the last two years. Of course, it’s highly unlikely that this coalition will last that long. It is composed of parties from the center-left to the far right.
It relies, as well, on the four votes of a right-wing Islamist Party. No Palestinian political party has ever been part of a ruling coalition. But make no mistake that this is a progressive development or represents the success of co-existence. Everyone in this coalition is out for their own interests, Palestinians as well as Jews. They don’t care a whit for the interests of their partners. In fact, their interests will clearly be at odds with them. Participating in it is like a game of Russian Roulette. Every member fires the pistol without knowing whether there’s a bullet in the chamber meant for him.
Further, the coalition cannot really put forward any serious legislative program. Virtually every major issue advanced by one member is opposed by another. So despite kicking out Netanyahu, it will have achieved very little. The issue that will get the shortest shrift is the Palestinian issue. While Labor and Meretz, the liberal faction in the government may want to make progress, Bennett has absolutely no interest in offering Palestinians anything they might want. Nor will Lapid try to force his hand, since he wants that golden prime minister’s ring in two more years. It is a recipe for continuing suffocating stasis.
Nor should one think that maintaining a status quo of sorts will leave the Palestinian question in limbo. In fact, Bennett will manage to advance the settler agenda. He will continue stealing land, building new settlements, tightening the siege of Gaza. And he will get away with it because no one cares about the Palestinians. Until he doesn’t. He may take one step too far: massacre Muslim worshippers at Al Aqsa or dishonor Palestinian citizens in some egregious fashion, at which point Mansour Abbas quits the coalition and we go to a fifth round of elections.
It’s a merry-go-round in which all the horses are bucking broncos and wild-eyed stallions straining at the bit.
On a different note, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken just completed his first round of visits with leaders in Israel, Jordan, Egypt and Palestine (see, AP and CBC, we can say that word here). Though he boasted of a massive commitment of US humanitarian aid to rebuilt Gaza, he was short on actual results. He announced an actual financial commitment of a few tens of millions, while speaking of ultimate needs in the billions. Where the money would come from and how it would get to Gaza were not specified. And there’s the rub. Because we consider Hamas a terror organization. We only recognize the PA, which itself has a contentious relationship with Hamas. So how will those billions get to Gaza? And if they do get to Gaza who will administer them? Who will decide what gets built and how it gets built? You can see from my questions how skeptical I am of the ultimate success of this project.
One of the least noted developments of Blinken’s visit to Israel was an invitation for outgoing Pres. Reuven Rivlin to visit the White House. Rivlin was last there during the Obama administration. Everyone loves “Ruvy.” He’s the ultimate Jewish grandpa. Sweet and kind. Which means of course that Sara Netanyahu hates him and Bibi doesn’t trust him. In fact, though Rivlin played a critical role in advancing Bibi’s earlier career, the latter wanted nothing to do with his presidential candidacy. He did everything possible to torpedo it, and failed.
Guess who didn’t get his White House invite? Bibi, of course. And given Netanyahu’s enormous ego, that must be eating away his liver. I was rather surprised that no one in Israeli media noticed this tremendous and deliberate sleight by Biden towards Bibi. A few days later, Yossi Verter did call it Biden “swinging a baseball bat to Bibi’s face,” which was quite apt.
If Netanyahu is evicted from Balfour Street, then Biden can feel vindicated. He can say there wasn’t enough time to bring him to the US before he left office. If Bibi remains prime minister, then the sleight becomes a larger issue that will rankle both him and Israel itself. But isn’t that the point Biden is trying to make? That Bibi may think he’s the boss, but has to stand in line like everyone else and take a ticket. If he crosses the US, as he is always wont to do, no one’s going to punch his ticket.
It’s also a warning that if Bibi thinks he’s going to poison the JCPOA talks in Vienna, he’s got another thing coming. This is one of the hallmarks of the Biden presidency. He wants stability in the region. He wants equilibrium between the Sunni and Shia forces in the region. For that to happen, he needs a return to the nuclear deal, which Bibi hates and has done everything in his power to destroy.
The one good thing that can come from an anti-Bibi coalition coming to power is that it will not have the same obsession with Iran that the current PM does. Biden will hammer that home if they form a new government. Certainly, Bennett can expect an early invitation to the White House where he’ll hear that message delivered loud and clear.
It’s not over till the fat lady sings. There is now tremendous pressure on him, Ayelet Shaked and Gideon Saar to go back to Bibi with lots of promises that Bibi will never keep. Tomorrow is an eon in Israeli politics.
The suggested coalition is not really ‘center-left’ but rather a form of unity government including left center and right. I don’t think anyone in Israel would define Meretz or Avoda as center. If your definition of left is only suitable for progressive parties, then all Zionist parties are center-right, but that is not Israeli or general Western parlance.
@ Shai: I did not say the coalition is “center-left.” Of course it’s not. It ranges from far-right parties to center-left parties. I would call it overall a center-right coalition.
Considering the Labor Party as a left party, as many in Israel do, is a total misnomer in western terms. It is a center-right party in those terms. If Sen Joe Manchin were Israeli, he’d feel at home in the Labor Party.
Richard, in this article you’ve refrained from calling Bennett a war criminal, which you’d done in the past.
What’s happened to that (baseless) claim you’d made against him? Has your opinion changed?
hey; ‘mighty’ stop being so sloppy and read the caption under the war criminals caricature
Sorry Willem, I prefer facts over cartoons.
Eyewitness, David Zonsheine, the chairman of the board of B’Tselem, Israel’s preeminent human rights organization, who served in the same unit and took part in the mission, claimed on Facebook that there was nothing wrong with Bennett’s actions that night and that in any case, he couldn’t have been held responsible for the killing. Other members of Maglan came out in support of Bennett as well.
http://972mag.com/blame-peres-not-bennett-for-the-qana-massacre/101046/
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/.premium-1.635638
This bears repetition, “Eyewitness, David Zonshein, the chairman of the board of B’Tselem”.
–and–
Former Sayeret Matkal commanders Maj. Gen. (res.) Shai Avital, who was Bennett’s battalion commander; former Maglan commander Maj. Gen. (res.) Assaf Shavit; Col. (res.) Roni Balkin; another former Maglan commander, Lt. Col. Eyal Dayan, the current deputy commander of Maglan, and numerous other officers, signed a letter defending Bennet’s actions in Lebanon.
http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Ex-IDF-commandos-defend-Bennett-against-accusations-he-caused-Kfar-Kana-massacre-386791
I suppose though, that if you keep on repeating a libel, some people are bound to believe it.
@ Mighty Mouse: Of course the senior command will defend Bennett as they will defend any officer accused of war crimes. Do you know of any senior officer who has turned on a subordinate under his direct command, and then accused his subordinate of war crimes? In effect, this implicates the senior commander with the same crime.
As for the 972 story, it does not claim Bennett was not incompetent and That he didn’t cause the Qana massacre. It rather claims the overall policy of the entire operation of in effect a war crime. That doesn’t absolve Bennett by any means.
And I note that you completely ignore Yigal Sara’s Yediot story, which is based on other eyewitness accounts, which accuses Bennett of a war crime. I’ve found in general that believing the claims of those who defend Israel from war crimes charges, especially when they are officers and so implicated thelsemves, is ridiculous. I’d rather believe an independent journalist with no personal interest or axe to grind.
You clearly as an apologist for Israeli war crimes who clearly has a very big axe to grind.
“And I note that you completely ignore Yigal Sara’s Yediot story, which is based on other eyewitness accounts, which accuses Bennett of a war crime.”
And the war crime Bennett is accused of is what? Exactly which war crime did Bennett commit?
David Zonshein was an eyewitness, and he knows a great deal about war crimes, yet he doesn’t accuse Bennett of war crimes.
Yigal Sara, no eyewitness and no authority on War Crimes, accused Bennett of gross incompetence, which isn’t a war crime.
Looking around, the only person I see accusing Bennett of War Crimes is Richard Silverstein.
So which is it Richard?
Name Bennett’s war crime, please.
You say he’s a war criminal, now prove it.
@ Mighty Whitey: You mean getting your unit into a desperate situation and then having to call in massive air power which results in 100 civilian deaths isn’t a war crime? Oh I’d say he’s definitely culpable.
Yigal Sarna is a journalist. Journalists break stories based on eyewitness sources, which he did in this case. So in this case Sara’s multiple eyewitness accounts against a single witness who says otherwise Trump’s the single eyewitness.
I don’t respond to people demanding that I do things. So don’t order me around. I don’t owe you anything. So don’t act as if I do.
Also, anyone who brags about murdering “Arabs” is a serial murderer. Murder in wartime is a war crime.
Glad to see you defending Israel’s murderers and War criminals. Tells us all we need to know about you.
You are done in this thread. Move on.
Getting rid of the UN Observer post …
Major Paeta Hess-von Kruedener, a Canadian Forces soldier serving with the UN in South Lebanon
A few minutes later, at just before 19:30, an Israeli F-16 pilot managed to do what so many other pilots and gunners failed to do that day—he dropped his 1,000-pound GPS-guided JDAM inside the compound, inside the blown-off door of the stout little underground bunker. It exploded in the front room beside Jarno. All they ever found of Jarno was a piece of his hip.
@ Willem: I originally displayed the Bennett caricature of Bennett as a Rambo figure. But I replaced it with the current political cartoon.
@ Might Mouse: Of course he’s a war criminal. Nor is the claim “baseless.” His own fellow soldiers and others who served in Lebanon accused him of gross incompetence. And the very fact that he boasted of how many Arabs he killed makes him a prime candidate for the Hague. But we will have to wait to see how many “Arabs” he kills as PM to see whether the ICC will formally accuse him.
Thanks.. much appreciated take on the situation.
An underlying assumption is that if a truly “left” government arose, it would offer enough to the Palestinians to obtain peace. This is false, since, as the progressive American left has repeated, nothing would bring peace other than the dissolution of Israel as a Zionist country. No Israeli party, no matter how left, will advocate dissolving their own country. And this is the religion of the progressive left– that Jews, since they are mainly White and presently powerful– are by definition oppressors and are not worthy of their own national self-determination. So if they don’t repudiate these aspirations, they are racist, apartheid, and fascists.
Another false assumption is that the oppression of American Blacks is the same as the treatment of the Palestinians. This reflects an ignorant and superficial understanding of the conflict, by groups such as BLM and others.
@ DrS: there is nothing accurate in your account. It’s always problematic when Judeo-supremacists try to tell us what anti-Zionists believe. In your case, doubly so. It also raises a red flag when propagandists like you attempt to portray the “underlying assumptions” of the left. You don’t even understand the explicit views of the left, let alone the underlying ones.
There is no chance of a “truly left government” arising in Israel. So all your posturing is irrelevant.
What will bring peace is either Israel recognizing a Palestinian state and withdrawing to 67 borders; or Israel incorporating all Palestinians as full citizens of Israel with rights equal to Jews.
In neither case would it cause the “dissolution of Israel.”
The progressive left does not speak of “Jews” when it analyzes Israel. It speaks of Israelis some Jews and some non-Jews. Nor does the progressive left see all Israelis as “White.” To do so would be completely wrong since there are Mizrahi Jews who are Arab, not white.
No one on the left says that Israeli Jews are not entitled to self-determination. In fact, almost everyone except possibly an extreme fringe agrees that Israeli Jews are entitled either to a state that lives peacefully alongside a Palestinian state, or as citizens of a single state in which they and Palestinian citizens have equal rights.
The oppression of American and South African Blacks is indeed similar to that of Palestinians. That’s why the solidarity movement between them is so strong.
As for “ignorance” “superficiality” and “bad faith,” you have the market cornered on that.
This is pure anti-peace fear mongering based on anti-“left” anti-progressive broad brushing, straw man arguments, presumptions that are false. Regarding definitions, oppression is oppression regardless of who is doing it or why.